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Sunday, January 15, 2012

A Pony Sunday

Pony time!

This Week's Episode: Baby Cakes

I have to confess, seeing that the episode began in a maternity hospital and knowing it must be the one where Pinkie babysits... well.. that made me groan. I'm one of those awful people who think that babies are scary drooling little monsters whose high-pitched squeals bring plenty of pain to the ears.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. I actually liked the fact that nobody was trying to show babies in a flattering light. The Cake twins were the drooling, screeching, clumsy monstrosities they would have been in real life. And I could totally sympathise with Pinkie when she shoved Twilight out the door for the "Some ponies aren't that responsible" line.

I liked the very distinct Tom & Jerry vibe going through the episode. And I also liked the small horror scene. It kept me on the edge of my seat as I expected poor Pinkie to go into Pinkamena mode driven insane by the children.So to wrap this up, even if you don't like babies, it's a good episode! Go watch it if you still haven't!

Community Highlights

I'm not gonna give a full list as it hasn't really been a week since my last pony post. So here's a "light" version for you.

Art of the week

Clydell Elmerson Pie A very unique style indeed! Go check out this rather psychedelic rendition of Pinkie's father.Cant read my derpy face And something a bit more light and humorous to balance things out! Derpy's gone Gaga and is bluffing with her muffin.

Music of the week

The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well I should stop shamelessly taking the weekly music suggestions from Bronyville. But this one is just so good that I couldn't resist! Makes me think of some soundtracks to "The Matrix".

Video of the week

Derpy Loves her Lava Lamp Okay, this is just adorable! I hear it's available as a screensaver somewhere, too. I don't have the link though.Gundam Stop Motion : Love & Tolerate... I love how well this video has been put together. I'm quite a big fan of stop-motion animation anyway, especially videos where toys "come to life". This one is great for how seamlessly the pose transitions happen and the special effects blend in. And the 2D Fluttershy really looks like she belongs in the scenes. I dare say that even if you don't like ponies that much, you should see it!I'm not sure how much I liked the character saying he's gonna love and tolerate the crap out of his opponent before starting a fight.. I'm sorry, but a fight is a fight. Yes, you should fight back. No question about it. But you love and tolerate later, when the guy you've beaten to a pulp is in a body cast and willing to listen to reason. ..Okay, I'm not saying go overkill if you've started fighting... but hey. It takes as much violence as it takes. I suppose the brony thing to do is to know exactly when to stop.

Foxy's rant of the week...

Have you seen Epic Cupcake Time? Well, it honestly is epic.It's a parody of a youtube show called Epic Meal Time where guys cook things with bacon, booze and a great deal of swearing and it's actually pretty funny.

So we've got Dash and Pinkie making cupcakes with a sick amount of sugar. It's very well animated, the voices for Pinkie and Dash are spot on. There's an unmistakeable "home movie" air about the whole thing. Plenty of references to both the show and Epic Meal Time. If it wasn't for some mild swearing (which I didn't even notice during the first view) it might as well have been one of the Hub's parody adverts and some parents might have even shown that to their kids ("See, son! Ponies are awesome! You can stop telling your friends now that you were adopted by a couple of psychotics!") We got proof that Pinkie and Rainbow can make cupcakes without getting gory, Derpy mysteriously appeared out of nowhere in the end. Everyone's happy!

And now there's Epic Pie Time. Well... There's more swearing. And there's booze. I started to cringe as these looked like omens of bad taste. But then Vinyl Scratch made an appearance and it all started to seem worthwhile. But not for long. Pinkie's decided to add more booze to the pie dough and broke a bottle. This followed by a buy-our-stuff advert for a cartoon site. Then more swearing and an inappropriate reference... in the end Rarity of all ponies appears, dives face-down in the pie and starts eating it....

Well... I am a disappoint... Because "mature content", I hear you ask? Nope. I couldn't help but feel slightly shortchanged, if that's the word I'm looking for. The first cartoon had set my expectations quite high. And the latest one... well... it seems both less intellectual, less tasteful and much less entertaining altogether than a "Cow & Chicken" episode and they have a fat red guy with no pants in the show . Basically before we had ponies in-character and the whole thing mimicked the show very well. At the time I assumed it was the author's intention. Now I'm not sure they know where they're going with this. I don't see the motivation behind spending hours animating something that looks like a cheap cry for attention. Surely Epic Pie Time would appeal to some teenage fans. Which brings about another point. Think of the drunks! You hear people say "think of the children" all the time, but children are not that dumb. Drunk teens are. It's a bad idea to eat a pie that has broken glass bits in it. You can actually die from having ingested small glass shards.

Do I think that there's no room for toilet humour in the fandom? Well, not really. If it's done well for what it is, and doesn't give you any false hope, why not! I'm sure you've seen these, but they are pretty iconic examples (and yes, the language, obviously, is inappropriate):